How to Advocate for Accessible Health Care is the Topic of the Latest Episode of Disability Rights and Wrongs — The David Lepodcast

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities

Website: www.aodaalliance.org

Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com

Twitter: @aodaalliance

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance

TikTok @AODAAlliance

 

 

 

How to Advocate for Accessible Health Care is the Topic of the Latest Episode of Disability Rights and Wrongs — The David Lepodcast

 

February 20, 2026

 

SUMMARY

 

 

The 9th episode of the AODA Alliance ‘s “Disability Rights and Wrongs — The David Lepodcast” is now available for your listening pleasure. It features an interview with Canadian physician Dr. Lisa Freeman. Based on her experience as a physician and as a person with disabilities, she describes some of the many disability barriers that patients with disabilities can encounter when trying to use health care services. She offers practical tips on how people with disabilities can effectively advocate for themselves in an effort to overcome these barriers.

 

This episode is important for anyone who has faced disability barriers to health care in the past or who, as they age, may face these barriers in the future. That includes everyone!

 

The AODA Alliance has been active since 2009 in an effort to achieve a barrier-free health care system. We’ve been campaigning since then to get the Ontario Government to enact a Health Care Accessibility Standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act to remove and prevent disability barriers to health care. We were promised a Health Care Accessibility Standard one decade ago. None has been enacted. The Ford Government has been sitting on the final report of the Government-appointed Health Care Standards Development Committee for four years. In the meantime, new disability barriers to health care keep being created, often using public money.

 

 

To Learn More

 

To learn more about disability barriers in the health care system and advocacy to remove and prevent these barriers, check out:

 

 

 

More about Our Podcast

 

Our growing series of podcasts transport you to the front lines of disability rights advocacy, boldly going where we want more people to go! If you are just starting, we invite you to listen to them all, in whatever order you wish.

 

We delve into advocacy incidents and battles of all sorts. Some were waged by individuals. Others are advanced by groups and organizations. We extract action tips on how to be an effective advocate, whether you are advocating on a disability issue or any social justice issue.

 

You will enjoy these stories whether or not you ever thought you’d have to advocate on a disability issue. At some point in everyone’s life, they will have do this, since everyone is bound to eventually get a disability as they age, if not sooner. Episodes are designed to be informative for listeners anywhere in the world, and not just in Canada where the podcast is based. We have listeners spread in countries all around the world.

 

New episodes drop every third Friday. Earlier episodes include:

  • “The 12 Year Fight for Automated Stop Announcements on the TTC” about Lepofsky’s long struggle to make transit in Toronto accessible for blind riders” with host David Lepofsky.
  • “Beyond Building Codes: Designing Spaces for Everyone”” with guest built environment accessible design expert Thea Kurdi
  • “Smart Strategies, Real Change: Lessons from a Landmark Autism Campaign Part 1” covering how targeted advocacy resulted in policy change for autism therapies.” With guest autism advocate Bruce McIntosh.
  • “Turning Barriers into Headlines: Practical Tips from a Veteran News Reporter” with former journalist Michelle McQuigge.
  • “How to get a Politician’s Attention” Parts 1 and 2 with the Honourable Kathleen Wynne, former Ontario Premier.
  • Airline Accessibility: How Maayan Ziv Turned a Mangled Wheelchair Into Real Change
  • “Smart Strategies, Real Change: Lessons from a Landmark Autism Campaign Part 2” covering how targeted advocacy resulted in policy change for autism therapies.” With guest autism advocate Bruce McIntosh.

 

Find this podcast on major podcast platforms.

 

Apple music: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disability-rights-and-wrongs-the-david-lepodcast/id1838700161

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WFLiSy99OJPMZ1ZSrkWCg

 

 

Ask your smart phone, Alexa, or Google Nest:

 

“Play podcast ‘Disability Rights and Wrongs!’”

 

You can also listen to episodes on your computer. Just use the links we provided, or simply Google “Disability Rights and Wrongs — The David Lepodcast” and take it from there.

To read a transcript of each podcast, Apple Music can generate transcripts. Spotify might do that as well. For iPhone users, you might prefer to use the live captioning feature that comes with your phone.

 

How You Can Help

  • Help us expand the audience for this podcast. Each new listener could later be a new disability advocate! Most people only learn about new podcasts when a friend or family member urges them to check it out. When you are talking to someone about it, encourage them to take their smart phone out then and there. Get them to open a podcast app, search for “David Lepodcast” and subscribe! It is that easy. Otherwise, they can forget to subscribe.
  • Tell your physician and other health care providers about this episode. Tell them it is worth a listen.
                • Do you know anyone who teaches in a medical school, nursing school, or program that trains other health care professionals? Tell them to put this new episode in their students’ mandatory curriculum.

 

              • Send us your feedback on the podcast. How did you like it? What topics should we cover in the future?